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Thursday, October 6, 2011

The "little voices" that wne a long way through the long, impoverish Depression

As if no one else has done a bunch of classic theatrical golden age animation but here's another familiar fan's one..and the first POST-introductory post, that is.

Various posts, most recently a Golden Age Cartoons forum post by Sanek on "Sniffles takes a Trip" from 1940, whid references obsucre Margaret Hill-Talbot, and Graham Webb and Keith Scott and others who have explained the Shirley Temple like cute animal voices heard so often, especially in the early days, the Depression, which such blobgs as Steven Hartley's excellent Warner Bros.blog, Likely Looney, Mostly Merrie is chronologically posting, and such, have prompted this first post on my new blog, TOON SNOOT [pardon my palinbdrome based title.] Bernice Hansen, a elusive type if ever there was one, was pinned for many years as the voice until more later research in the 70s-80s turned up these.. In Hollywood alone: Bernice Hansen
Leone Le Deoux
Gay Seabrook
Margaret Hill-Talbot
Sarah Berner
Dorothy Varden
Rochelle Hudson
Dorothy Compton
Mary Moder [the two ladies above had the honors of playing Walt Disney's more dimwitting little pigs to Pinto Colvig's practical one]
and others.

In New York at Fleischer, which seems to have the memorable ones Mae Questel. This was largely before the MGM/WB etc. revolution where these were used less.. The late, much-missed Animato! mag had a bunch of articles by Keith Scott and Graham Webb and Hames Ware, who heard a 1969 tape identiofying Shirley Reed as Petunia. Bob Clampett rememebred Bernice Hansen as the voice of HIS cutie charcters, and, maybe in a way that further detracted from his status with the others, misidentified Bernice as doing CHUCK JONES":S Sniffles, yet Gay Seabrooke [the mother in Hal Roach's Little Racals, pre-MGM] was identified in the 1990s or earlier from a raido program with the role model for WB's Egghead, Joe "Wanna buy a Duck" Penner [1904-1941], and discovered the voice match, as well as seeing a Stooges Columbia episode "Men in White", with Bernice. Berner was presumed the voice for Sniffles and similair later through similiar means. Some boys nlike Tommy Bond also of Rascals appeared in WB shorts., Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising at MGM had a handful of others ["The Little Mole"'s title character, for one] whose voices are yet to be ID'd. And many others. You can look all of the names up on Google., Aren't you glad that there's Google? :-)

So many of these "cutie cutie" voices, apparently many Shirley Temple based, sound so similiar as unaninamously agreed, it can be hard to identify them..On Brandon Pierce's page, Keith Scott who I hope reads this mentioning much of what I wrote and then some, said pretty much the same thing!

And finally, as you alreayd may have known through the grapevine [cue Marvin Gaye, CCR, Gladys and the Pips, Calif.Raisons] that Berniece Hansell NEVER played Sniffles.:) At least three have been identified, Gaye Seabrooke, Maragret Talbot and Sara Bernewr. Maragraet Talbot and Margaret McKay may be the same entity.